NoV: Saturday's chapter is here, my brethren! And the trivia question from last time when I asked if anyone knew how many of things had happened in my real life from that chapter: the answer is 4. I had a guy on the beach renting parasail rides lecture me for forty-five minutes, my sister fell through a pier, I got attacked by seagulls (but who hasn't), and I hit a buoy on a seadoo. My life is sad….
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Quote of the day:
Kush: I want your fruit, but not that way.
Alley: He dropped a pineapple in my ketchup.
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The paralysis just turned out to be a temporary shocked response. The bohemians only ended up wasting four hours in the emergency room at the local hospital, which Angel could live with. Maureen suggested that they all go out to lunch since they were in town anyway, so they stopped off at a seafood place by the coast.
The seven of them were sitting at a long table, looking at menus, except for Angel who was gushing yet again about Margo Fletcher. "I bet she's so great! I wonder if she'll sign my hat! That would be so cool. I could sell it at an auction for thousands of dollars! No, I'd rather keep it and stare at it and cherish it…."
"Baby, the waiter wants to know what you'll have to drink," Collins said for the third time.
"I am the luckiest person in the entire world! Maybe she'll ask me to come on the road with her and help her think of designs! I should definitely wear my patchwork dress…." she rambled.
Collins turned to the waiter. "You got any tranquilizers?"
"…..we have really strong whiskey," the waiter replied, quite annoyed but keeping up a polite front.
"That'll do," Collins said, giving him his leave.
"Make it two," Mimi said, rubbing her sore head.
Gratefully, the man walked into the kitchen shaking his head.
--
Twenty-five minutes later, their steaming food was brought out to them by their unfortunate waiter. Joanne, who had ordered the lobster, pulled the lid off of her fancy plate. Steam rose from the plate to reveal what she had expected, the lobster. She just….didn't expect for it to be alive.
"Excuse me," she said, stopping the waiter by pulling on his shirt. "What—what is this?"
The waiter ripped their ticket off his pad and placed it on the table. "There's your bill," he said flatly. "Enjoy your meal."
The lobster began walking off the plate and onto the tablecloth as the seven of them stared at it in disbelief. It walked around inspecting all the items on the table like an inquisitive little lobster should.
Maureen squeaked, "Let's name him Jeff!"
--
Forty-five minutes later found them all back on the beach or at the pool: Collins, Angel, Maureen and Joanne on the beach and Roger, Mimi and Mark at the pool. The lobster, ahem, Jeff was playing in its makeshift habitat in the hotel room's bathtub. Down on the beach, Maureen was waving to a couple of guys who walked by, admiring her bikini, while Joanne freaked out and demanded she cover herself up. To this, Maureen stuck out her tongue and stomped off down the beach while Joanne sat simmering in her anger. Angel and Collins, the apparent and literal opposite of the female couple, were having a pleasant conversation and lying together on a beach blanket. (Even though Collins felt a little like strangling Angel every time she brought up Margo Fletcher or hats in general.)
"It's a pretty day, isn't it?" Collins said.
"Five hours until Margo's hat lecture!" Angel cried as if the sentiment just had to burst out like an overfilled balloon.
"Is that a yes?"
Angel looked at him for a full minute, a wide-eyed expression on her face, neither of them saying a word. Suddenly she burst into tears.
"What's wrong, baby?" Collins asked, worriedly taking her into his arms.
"I'm just so happy," she sobbed.
Collins was at a loss for what to say to that. "Um….it'll be okay….?"
Angel's tears dried quickly. "Let me bury you in the sand!"
"What?" Collins said reflexively.
"Lemme bury you in the sand!" Angel repeated. "C'mon! It'll be fun!"
"Okay…."
"Lie on your back," Angel instructed, pointing to a flat patch of sand. Collins did as she told him to. Angel began piling sand on top of him as he lay there, hoping she was still sane.
--
In the meantime Mark and Roger were hanging out in the pool, partially bothered by all the loud, annoying kids swimming around. Mimi was sitting on a plastic deck chair, tanning.
"Hey, Mimi, come get in the pool and we'll play chicken against Mark and this little ten-year-old bastard that won't leave us alone," Roger said as he and Mark walked over to Mimi.
Mimi pulled down her sunglasses to reveal her uninterested expression. "I don't think cracking my head open would be the best way to end the vacation. You know how Angel freaks out every time you mention the word 'hospital,' so….." She lay back, putting her shades back into place.
"Come on," Mark said. "You're all red. You look like you're burning up, and it's making me uncomfortable." He himself was wearing a t-shirt to compensate for the hideous farmer's tan he had acquired, and he planned to never take it off so long as he lived and was in public.
"I am a little hot," Mimi admitted. She shrugged and sat up. When she tried to stand, however, she found that her bottom was stuck to the plastic chair with sweat. "Ow!" she cried as she felt it pinch her skin.
"What is it?" Roger wondered as she made strange movements to try and slowly remove herself from the chair.
"Owww," she seethed. "Arrrggh….I'm stuck to the chair…."
Mark couldn't help but say, "I guess this would be the lawn chair sticky-butt dance, then…."
Mimi glared at him and finally pried herself off the chair, like ripping off a butt-sized band-aid.
--
"Hahaha!" Angel laughed maniacally, pouring buckets of sand on Collins' head. "You'll never see the light of day again!!"
Collins tried to cry out for Joanne's help, but when he opened his mouth, sand poured in and prevented any noise from escaping. His eyes pleaded for Angel to stop, to realize that she was killing him, but she only became more enflamed with the desire to smother him.
"Goodbye, Collins!" she said with a dark chuckle. "Have a good after-life! Hahahahahaha!"
--
Collins burst free of his sand cocoon all of a sudden, startling Angel and Joanne, who were minding their own business, reading magazines. He breathed heavily, then calmed down realizing that it was a dream. A very frightening dream.
Angel recovered from the fright quickly, saying, "Four hours until the hats!" She smiled at Collins, then grabbed a beer from the cooler and starting chugging it in a less than ladylike manner.
"Uhhh…..baby?" Collins wondered, standing up and wiping off some of the sand. "Why are you drinking so much?"
Angel blinked, confused. She had only had the two—no three—whiskey shots at lunch, and now the one beer….That wasn't a lot, was it? "I don't know," she answered. "I'm jittery. It calms me down…."
Collins raised an eyebrow, but didn't get a chance to say anything else as Maureen, with a tiara and a white, plastic sash, came running up to them, excitedly.
"Guess what, Pookie!" she cried, hugging Joanne, having forgotten their argument.
Joanne didn't resist the hug, but didn't embrace her back. She simply asked, "What?"
"I won the Miss Bikini contest!" Maureen yelled. "I'm Miss Bikini!"
"Oh my god," Joanne said quietly.
"Congratulations!" Angel screamed, alarming Collins.
"Thank you!" Maureen exclaimed. "I won ten pounds of tanning oil, a gift certificate to some bikini store, and a free party with a huge buffet! Isn't it great?"
"Oh, sure," Joanne said, adjusting the tiara for her.
"Let's go tell the others!" Maureen cried, bouncing up the beach. Joanne followed her, groaning.
Angel picked up the blankets and Collins grabbed the cooler. They began to follow Maureen and Joanne back to the hotel when out of nowhere, something rammed Collins very violently in the head. "Yow…." he said softly, then toppled over.
"Honey!" Angel cried, dropping the towels and rushing to Collins' side. He lay there dazed with a huge bruise forming on the side of his face. "Are you okay, baby?" Angel asked.
"Ahhh….." Collins groaned. "What hit me?"
Angel looked at the object. "Um…..our umbrella."
"Wha?" Collins said, confused. "Who threw it?"
"No one threw it," Angel replied. "It was blowing around in the wind….."
Collins' leg twitched and he shook his head to clear the stupor clouding his brain. "Wow…." he simply said. "That was messed up."
--
Mark got out of the pool a few minutes after Mimi had gotten in. "I'm gonna see what the others are up to," he said. "My shirt's getting heavy; I need to let it dry out some."
"Why don't you just take it off?" Roger wondered.
Mark just gave him a glare, as he knew that Roger knew very well why he didn't want to take it off. The filmmaker walked around the pool area, seeing a sign that said "BEACH: THIS WAY." He didn't remember going that way to the beach before, but shrugged and naively decided to follow it.
Mark, once he made it past the fence, scanned the beach for his friends, but didn't spot them right away. He walked further onto the beach when a blond, muscled guy ran up to him, carrying a beach ball at hip-level. "Hey, man!" he said, halting Mark from going any further. "You can't wear that stuff here!"
Mark looked down at his clothes, wondering if there was any offensive writing on his shirt. Finding none, he looked confused at the guy and said, "What do you mean? Why not?"
"This is a nude beach, bro," he replied, spiking the beach ball back over to his group of friends.
"Oh, right," Mark said. Then he did a double-take. The man wasn't wearing anything. In fact, no one on this beach was wearing anything! Wait…..did he just say "nude beach"?? Mark's jaw went slack as he gawked at the shameless people walking around. Not a farmer's tan, or even a tan line in sight!
Out of instinct, knowing that he didn't belong with this crowd, Mark began to retreat. However, upon seeing a cute and mighty voluptuous brunette, beckoning him and wearing nothing but a stunning smile, Mark couldn't help but tear off his clothes and go running off to introduce himself.
--
After telling her riveting tale about the bikini contest to a virtually uninterested Roger and Mimi, Maureen announced that the time for her free banquet was fast approaching and they needed to go get ready. "Where's Mark?" she wondered, not seeing him anywhere. "Is he already up in the room?"
"No, he just went looking for you guys down on the beach," Roger replied. He and Mimi got out of the pool and began to dry off.
"Huh, guess we just missed him," Joanne said.
"Do you think we should go find him?" Mimi asked.
"No, I'm sure when he doesn't see us, he'll realize we've left and come back up to the hotel," Maureen said. "It takes him the least time to get ready anyway. Let's go on to the room."
--
Angel, with one of Collins' arms wrapped over her shoulders, carefully helped the man up to the room. "Here we are," she said, unlocking the door and leading him inside. She gently laid him onto the bed and went about finding some ice for his head. "Are you feeling any better?"
"Yeah, a little," Collins answered, placing his hand against the spot.
"Here you go," she said, handing him a plastic baggie full of ice.
"Thanks, love," Collins said, smiling and applying the ice to his bruising face.
--
Half an hour later, everyone was ready to go to the buffet, except Mark who still wasn't back. "Let's just leave a note on the door telling him where we are," Roger said. "He's probably….in the arcade or something. We've gotta leave so we can get back. Heaven forbid we should be late for Margo…."
Angel was wired and bouncing off the walls with anticipation. "He's right! Even if we missed the first second of the lecture—even if we missed the second before the first second, I would die."
"All right," Maureen said. She was wearing a black, flirty party dress and was ready for the banquet celebrating her bikini prowess. She scribbled a note to Mark and stuck it to the door, then led the others out to the hotel's party room.
--
There was a ton of food and an open bar in the room, which was both exciting and disturbing, regarding the possible outcomes of the evening. Maureen had gotten up on a platform and given a speech about how lucky she was to be able to accept her award, although only her friends who had already heard about her victory were present. Joanne finally coaxed her off the "stage" when she reminded her of all the vegetarian food (at Maureen's request) that was waiting for them. Joanne, who hadn't eaten lunch for obvious reasons, was really starving.
"Ooh, yummy," Mimi said, picking up a spring roll and putting it on her plate.
"None of those soyballs," Roger said, looking around. "Nobody better put those on my plate."
"Nobody's putting anything on your plate, Roger," Mimi said, rolling her eyes.
"Good, because those things are nasty," he said, narrowing his eyes at Collins, who had a great affection for them.
Collins maturely stuck out his tongue at the guitarist, who in turn threw a baked potato at him. It hit Collins on his bruise and he cried out in agony. "That's it, Roger, you're dead, man!" he promised. He looked around for something to throw back at him, but Angel grabbed his arm and gave him a sternish look.
Mimi stared at Roger, disapprovingly. "Real mature, Rog," she said, shoving him slightly.
Roger, clearly not expecting this, fell into the buffet, knocking the table on its side and spilling all the food.
Four people shouted "ROGER!" and the fifth, Joanne, began to cry at not having a chance to get anything in her belly.
"The soyballs are still okay," Angel pointed at. They all looked to the perfectly preserved bowl of meatless meatballs.
--
Roger had gone to the room to change out of his food-covered clothing. The others all sat at a table, centered around the bowl of soyballs, which was thankfully big enough to satisfy all their appetites.
"Oh my god! Only an hour and a half until the lecture!" Angel crowed. She was visibly shaking with excitement. "I can't believe it's here! I can't believe that finally after all this waiting, I'm getting to meet THE Margo Fletcher, designer extraordinaire! I'm so excited, I think I'm going to explode! I mean, can you believe—"
"Angel!" Mimi snapped, then softened her tone. "Sweetie, you're a little overbearing right now. You don't want Margo to think you're a spazz, do you?"
Angel thought about that, and still shaking, said, "Well…no…."
"Why don't you have a drink?" Collins suggested. "Maybe it'll help calm you down." They were all very tired of Angel's rapturous state.
"They have pineapple daiquiris," Maureen mentioned.
"Ooh, my fave!" Angel exclaimed, calling the waiter over. He obliged in getting the drag queen a daiquiri and Mimi motioned for him to keep them coming. This spelled the end of Angel's sanity.
--
A few minutes later, a clean and very distraught-looking Roger reappeared, shaking his head. The group looked up to stare at him and he said, "I found Mark." He looked toward the door with a sympathizing sigh. "Brace yourselves, he's going to make an announcement.
They all looked at the door in anticipation, except for Angel who was feeling very loose after her third daiquiri, going on the fourth. Mark appeared in the doorway. No one gasped. No one said a word. No one did anything, even though he was standing there, stark naked. "I have decided to become a nudist!" he proclaimed, as if telling them he had just been elected president. "Now, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to leave you for my new nudist friends! So long, love you guys! Love, peace, enjoy your feast!"
Roger and Collins excused themselves to go have an intervention.
"That was scary," Joanne said, breaking the stunned silence.
"The farmer's tan or the nakedness altogether?" Maureen asked.
"The entire last fifteen seconds of my life," Joanne replied.
"Woo-hoo!" Angel squealed, tossing her jacket aside and downing her whole cup of pineapple and alcohol. "Mark looked sexy tonight, didn't he?"
Mimi took an inventory of all the empty daiquiri cups in front of Angel. "I'm cutting you off, honey," she said
"No way!" Angel yelled. She hopped upon the table, despite her friends' objections. "I'm just getting started!" She began to do a dance that only a very drunk of very fearless person would do on a table. Mimi, Joanne and Maureen tried to grab her and pull her back to the floor, but she danced out of their reach, giggling with mirth. After a little while, Angel got down on her own terms, running over to the bar and grabbed the whole daiquiri bottle and began chugging it.
Mimi wrestled the bottle from her grasp and began to scold her. "Angel, you're going to wind up out cold and you won't be able to see Margo."
Angel gasped, remembering the speech. "Oh, no, I've gotta loosen up so I can meet the Margo!" She grabbed the bottle back from Mimi and drank some more.
"Hey, you know where you can get really loose?" Maureen said, her eyes wide, trying to trick the very intoxicated Angel.
"Where?" Angel wondered, looking around.
"In the hotel room!" Maureen exclaimed.
"Is that where sexy Markie is?" Angel asked.
"You bet it is!" Mimi replied, chiming in.
Angel thought it over and said, "Let's go……to our room. That one that's up there." She actually pointed down, but the others got the message. Angel began staggering toward the exit, still holding onto the bottle of alcohol. "Whoops, better leave this here," she said, giggling, as she dropped the alcohol bottle, which broke into a hundred pieces.
Mimi grimaced and helped lead Angel around the glass, hoping her drunk friend wouldn't fall in it. "Come on, honey, let's go upstairs," she said, as Maureen flanked Angel's other side. Joanne brought up the rear in case one or all three of them fell backwards.
"I can't go upstairs," Angel said, simply.
"Why not?" Maureen asked.
Angel giggled. "I am very drunk….." she said profoundly.
--
At noon the next morning, six bohemians, including Jeff the lobster in the cooler and Mark, who had been talked out of his nudist fling, were packed and ready to go, dreading the moment Angel woke with a hangover and a very angry temper. They watched tensely as she sat up slowly, groaning with a stiffness like only the previous night could give. "Shit…." she muttered, looking up at Collins. "What happened?"
Collins glanced vaguely at her. "Maybe it's better if you don't remember," he said. "Come on," he helped her out of bed, "we have to get going."
They all breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe if she forgot about missing the hat lecture, she wouldn't kill them. They were almost out the door when she yelled, "THE HATS!!!!! I'M GOING TO MURDER YOU, YOU BASTARDS!!!!!" The other six all ran away as Angel chased them. Passersby would swear they saw flames shooting out of her mouth.
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NoV: Yahoo! All done with story number two! YAI!!!